It wasn’t a new camera that changed football on TV in the 90s; it was the time that persists on the scorebug. Viewers went from feeling like a member of the crowd to having their attention split between the game and a stopwatch. It ruins your immersion.

Football is art, like a movie. You wouldn’t start watching a movie 5, 10, 15, 30, or 45 minutes in. You start from the beginning and then you finish the movie. A movie doesn’t need the time permanently displayed because it has you hooked. The film director knows you can’t miss a single minute, or you’ll be lost in the plot.

Like the players, you have an internal clock. You can sense how far you are into a half. If you must know, you politely peer at the time on the clock when there is a break in play, but you won’t stare at the time constantly. That’s something a nervous manager or fan does.

Why did I find the games from the 60s, 70s, and 80s to be more captivating? The time was not permanently displayed. I wasn’t distracted.

The scorebug is the graphic at the corner of the screen that displays the teams, the score, and the time on the clock.

When there is no scorebug, it is just you, a commentator for color, a loud crowd, the players, and a ball—nothing else. There are no distractions from the game.

I understand why you would want to have the teams and the score shown on the screen permanently. It is convenient.

But I’m a minimalist. I like open floor plans and minimal furniture in a room. When the time is hidden, you feel like you are in the stands. You pay closer attention to the smaller details. A ticking clock is distracting.

Before the 90s, the time and score would flash on screen every 10 minutes to remind you the game eventually ends. That was all you needed.

Good games go by quickly, and bad games never end, but you don’t want the game to end unless your team is up.

Like a movie, you want to be surprised when the game ends. It builds the suspense and tension. The narratives surrounding the game have you hooked. If you look away, you’ll miss an important action. You don’t need to know the exact time.

For business reasons, it was natural for the big TV corporations to add a timer to the scorebug. Blame David Hill, in particular, for implementing it in 1992 at Sky Sports. The audience gained access to more channels. Viewers began to channel surf. People’s attention spans shrunk. They needed to keep people alert and maintain retention. It’s convenient to know the time if you have someplace else to be.

But why is the target audience people who are not interested in watching? Join late, know the state of the game, leave early, repeat.

That one decision to permanently display the time shaped the way we view football. It makes people focus more on the result than the art because it distracts them from the less significant parts of the game. The highlights are the focus, but you are missing everything in between the goals. It caters to those who aren’t interested. It takes the viewer out of the stadium. It is a less immersive experience.